


Street Noise

by TravelDustedShoes



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology, Hellenistic Religion & Lore
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-01
Updated: 2016-09-01
Packaged: 2018-08-12 11:29:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7932928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TravelDustedShoes/pseuds/TravelDustedShoes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No matter how many millennia have passed, Persephone finds her way home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Street Noise

**Author's Note:**

> This is a little ficlet based off of a line from KataChthonia's (Rachel Alexander's) Destroyer of Light, where Persephone and Hades continue to meet in Eleusis in modern times.

The sun was warm, but already you could feel the autumn breeze off the Gulf of Elefsina.  Strange how language works; over time it evolves and shifts, incorporating elements of other tongues - be it through peaceful trade or war.  However, some things did remain.  Athens is still Athens, Crete is still Crete, but as the rite of the mysteries faded so too did the name.  Eleusis.  

She doesn't use her full name up here.  It doesn't carry the same fear among the citizens of Hellas as it once did, but in this world of brevity and pace it has become cumbersome.  But neither will she use her old name.  The memory of it still stings, bittersweet and strong.   In the time of the mortals it had been over a millennium, but to her it felt like yesterday - the day her mother retired into the earth, saddened and exhausted, unable and unwilling to fight against the shifting tides of change. 

Most of the dodekatheon had retired into the things they personified; very few remained to walk the earth.  Some, like Athena, had been able to adapt and shift their role into the new religions.   Others, like her father and mother, withdrew completely.  Their spirits still remained, but they would never take corporeal shape again. 

She strolls the ruins of the Telesterion, waiting for sunset.  Once, this would not have been the place to meet her husband, but with Demeter's passing into the earth he felt reasonably safe meeting her here.  Every now and again she'll change up the exact location; sometimes preferring the eating establishment of an inn that sits where the Ploutonion once stood, sometimes preferring to meet at the mouth of the cave itself - expediting her trip home if it had been a particularly hard season.  Her mother may not take corporeal form anymore, but she could still make their lives difficult if she wanted to.  The mortals and their progress did them no favours either.  The Telesterion had become her favourite meeting place.  As life settled into the routine of night, she could sometimes drown out the noise and imagine what this place had been all those years ago.  

One of the mortals, a caretaker of the ruins comes up to her and mentions that the museum will be closing shortly.  She asks the young man if it is alright to stay within the ruins for just awhile longer.  Not once has she been denied.  He nods with a smile, and says that she should leave before dark as it isn't safe for women at night.  She answers back politely; I am meeting my husband here, and we will not be long. 

The hum of Eleusis, of Elefsina in the modern tongue, has blended into the larger din of Athens.  From the center of the ruins she can hear the cars, busses, and contraptions the mortals call aeroplanes all around her.  There is chatter, rushed and clipped, among the many from different lands who have come to see what remains.  The lights down below are harsh against the setting sun.  She wonders what Helios and Apollo would think of this garish scene as the people try to live all hours of the day.  Nothing sleeps anymore.  Nothing is calm anymore. 

She pulls out a book written in English -the hybrid teutonic language that has come to dominate the world she watches over.  It is the weakest of her written languages, and her husband has suggested that she spend her season above seeking to improve her understanding of it.  With a smirk, she is reminded that he does not exactly have mastery of that language either - recalling a time decades ago when he cursed the ever evolving language of double meanings and bastardized phrasing.  The time it will take her to even read a few pages of this...novel as they call it, should be enough for him to get here. 

The street noise becomes a sort of meditation as day slips into night.  It fills her mind as she feels the change of season flow through her.  In this world, seasons still come and go but this sound, this incessant hum of activity has become the background to the mortals' lives. The sign of their life. She laments at the stillness they have lost. 

Like a queen bee lost in the sounds of her hive, she does not hear the footfall of someone approaching, but she is  _in tune_ with their being. 

_Aidon._

She closes her book to look up at her husband of millennia.  He cuts a striking figure in the fashions of these mortals; black jacket with grey trousers and a white shirt that reflects the hints of grey at his temples and in his beard.  Her heart beats for him just as strong as it did that first autumn she was returned to his side.  

"English?" His cool baritone asks.  She drinks it up like man desert parched.  He may be with her for midsummer, but the months before and after are interminable. 

"It was your suggestion.  An overwrought language, no?"

He cracked the smallest of grins. "Overwrought? Now there's a word. You've been using it too much."

"Overwrought?"

"No. English."

She laughed. "I wouldn't doubt it.  I spent more time on the far side after midsummer." 

"Why?" Aidon was mildly shocked; his wife was not fond of 'the Americas' as the mortals called it. 

"They have ruined so much, and mother's spirit hasn't been strong enough to replenish it alone.  I could feel her asking for help." Her face was downcast. 

Aidon nodded.  Demeter's withdrawal was still a sore point.  His wife understood why, but still felt abandoned all the same.  The Pomegranate Agreement was designed for her to remain with Demeter, but the changes wrought by that agreement could not be undone.  

She had no one to return to in the spring. 

Aidon sat down beside his wife and felt her lean into his shoulder.  Without thinking he wrapped his arm around her and drew them closer together. "What name have you been using this season, sweet one?" He slipped into Theoi.  One step closer to home. 

"Mara. It's easy, and almost universal. It doesn't raise eyebrows or draw attention." She smiled. "But it's not the same. Say my name Aidon.  It feels so long since I've heard it."

The smile reached Aidon's eyes as he turned to face his wife. "Persephone."  The heat between them was palpable. He shifted just enough to place a lingering kiss on her lips.  All these years, the thrill he felt when she opened up to him was the same as that first night. 

"Hmm", Persephone hummed as she pulled away, "thank you."

They sat together in companionable silence watching the last rays dip beneath the horizon. In their thoughts they were trading tales of the last three months.  With Hermes no longer around to assist communication, the time before and after midsummer was spent in relative silence.  Their only means to communicate now were the odd times Persephone crossed Thanatos' or Makaria's path.  Persephone delighted in seeing her daughter, but never the circumstances under which they met.  Above ground she was the Goddess of Spring, and rarely does that cross paths with blessed death.  It was always easier for mother and daughter to meet at home than above.

The young man from earlier was locking up the museum when he looked over at them and tapped his watch apologetically.  They had to go. 

"Did you want to linger, or head home?" Aidon asked as he helped his wife up. 

Persephone listened once more to the street noise.  She had had enough for now.  Let the mortals keep their sounds; she would keep hers.  Even distantly she could hear them.   _Metra...Pater...Soteria...Sto Theo kai Thea...Aristi Chthonia!_  

"Let's go home."

 

 

 


End file.
